Carles Fàbrega represents the biotechnology company in Colombia and calls for more unified regulation across Latin America

This November, HIPRA took part in the previous sessions for the fourth summit between Europe and Latin America, EU-CELAC, held in Colombia. The Managing Director of the company’s Human Health Division, Carles Fàbrega, travelled there to speak in the panel “Strategies for market shaping to ensure equitable access”, moderated by Spain’s Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla.

During his participation, Fàbrega described HIPRA’s role as a strategic partner of HERA, the European authority established after the COVID-19 pandemic that works under the European Commission to ensure rapid response and prepare Europe for potential health emergencies.

As a lesson learned from 2020, Fàbrega emphasized that anticipation and preparedness are key to ensuring greater response capacity in future health emergencies. He highlighted some of the initiatives led by HERA in Europe, which are essential to accelerate processes, develop financial instruments, and move Europe towards health autonomy in times of crisis, avoiding dependency on third parties. HERA’s collaboration with industry “is a successful formula that allows us to build a solid strategy in Europe and strengthen ourselves preventively,” said HIPRA’s Human Health Division Managing Director.

In this context, Fàbrega pointed out the role of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Revolving Fund as a long-standing mechanism in the region that guarantees Latin American and Caribbean countries equal access to vaccines and other medicines. He also encouraged Latin American countries to move towards a more territorially unified regulatory framework that harmonizes processes and facilitates access to new medicines.

Fàbrega described cooperation between these two major regions as a “unique opportunity.” “We share values but also common challenges, such as reducing external dependence on critical products,” stressed the Human Health Division Manager during the sessions co-organized by Spain’s Ministry of Health and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) together with the CSAI Foundation, held in the lead-up to the state summit in Colombia.